Development Variety first reported in January 1992 that
Warner Bros. Pictures had optioned the
film rights to
Michael Garrison's television show
The Wild Wild West, and hired
Richard Donner, who previously directed three episodes of the original series, to direct a film adaptation written by
Shane Black, with
Mel Gibson in the role of Jim West. However, Donner and Gibson left the project to work on
a film adaptation of Maverick (another film based on a Western television series) in 1994. The project continued in the development stage, with
Tom Cruise rumored for the lead in 1995. Cruise instead starred in
a film adaptation of Mission: Impossible the following year. Discussions with
Will Smith and
Barry Sonnenfeld began in February 1997 after the two had wrapped up production on
Men in Black for
Columbia Pictures the same year. Smith declined to play the lead role of
Neo in
The Matrix in favor of
Wild Wild West, which he later regretted. Warner Bros. pursued
George Clooney to co-star in the film as Artemus Gordon, with
Kevin Kline,
Matthew McConaughey and
Johnny Depp also in contention for the role while
Short Circuit and
Tremors screenwriters
S. S. Wilson and
Brent Maddock were hired by the studio to script the film between April and May 1997. Clooney signed on the following August after dropping out of
Jack Frost, while Wilson and Maddock's script was rewritten by the writing team of
Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. However, in December 1997, Clooney was replaced by Kline in the role of Gordon after an agreement with Sonnenfeld: "Ultimately, we all decided that rather than damage this project trying to retrofit the role for me, it was better to step aside and let them get someone else."
Writing The film featured several significant changes from the television series. For instance, Dr. Loveless, as portrayed by
Kenneth Branagh in the film, went from a
dwarf to a legless man confined in a steam-powered
wheelchair similar to that employed by the villain in the episode "The Night of the Brain"; his first name was also changed from Miguelito to Arliss, and he was given the motive of a Southerner who sought the defeat of the North after the Civil War. Kevin Kline plays Artemus Gordon in the film, whose character is similar to the original show's version of him portrayed by
Ross Martin, except that he is much more egotistical than Jim West. The film depicted Kline's Gordon creating more bizarre, humorous and implausible inventions than those created by Martin's Gordon in the original series, as well as having an aggressive rivalry with West, unlike in the series where he and West had a very close friendship and trusted each other with their lives. While Gordon did indeed impersonate Grant in three episodes of the series ("The Night of the Steel Assassin", "The Night of the Colonel's Ghost" and "The Night of the Big Blackmail"), they were not played by the same actor. Additionally, West was originally portrayed by
Robert Conrad, a
Caucasian rather than an
African American, which serves as a critical plot point as West's parents were among the victims of Loveless's massacre at New Liberty. In a 2002 Q&A event on
An Evening with Kevin Smith, filmmaker
Kevin Smith talked about working as a writer on a fifth
Superman film in 1997 titled
Superman Lives, revealing that producer
Jon Peters requested, among other things, that
Superman fight a gigantic
spider in the third act. After
Batman director
Tim Burton came onboard the project, Smith's script was scrapped and Warner Bros. later halted production on
Superman Lives in 1998, though
Wild Wild West, which Peters produced alongside Sonnenfeld, featured a giant mechanical spider that Dr. Loveless takes control of.
Neil Gaiman also revealed that Peters insisted a giant mechanical spider be included in a proposed film adaptation of
The Sandman.
Filming displayed at
B&O Railroad Museum Principal photography was set to begin in January 1998, but was pushed three months later to April 22, 1998. The interior sequences on the trains of both Artemus Gordon and Dr. Loveless were shot on sets at
Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, while the exterior sequences were shot in
Idaho on the
Camas Prairie Railroad.
The Wanderer in the film is portrayed by the Baltimore & Ohio 4–4–0 No. 25, one of the oldest operating steam locomotives in the U.S. Built in 1856 at the
Mason Machine Works in
Taunton, Massachusetts, it was later renamed The
William Mason in honor of its manufacturer. The locomotive is brought out for the B&O Train Museum in Baltimore's "Steam Days". Both the
William Mason and the
Inyo, which was the locomotive used in the original television series, previously appeared in the 1956
Disney film
The Great Locomotive Chase. Much of the Wild West footage was shot around
Santa Fe, New Mexico, particularly at the Western town
film set at the Cook Movie Ranch (now
Cerro Pelon Ranch), which was previously used for the 1985 film
Silverado. During the shooting of a sequence involving stunts and pyrotechnics, a planned building fire grew out of control and quickly overwhelmed the local fire crews that were standing by. Much of the town was destroyed before the fire was contained. In the scene where Loveless' spider attacks the town, a chimney reading "Kasdan Iron Monger" is briefly shown as a
homage to
Silverado director
Lawrence Kasdan.
Music The orchestral
film score, including its main theme, was composed and conducted by
Elmer Bernstein, a veteran of many
Western film scores such as
The Magnificent Seven. The score mainly follows the Western genre's symphonic tradition, while at times also acknowledging the film's anachronistic playfulness by employing a more contemporary music style with notable
rock percussion and
electronic organ. The score also briefly incorporates
Richard Markowitz's theme from the original television series in one cue, which was uncredited in the film and not included on the score's album; ironically, this was one of the film's few elements that were faithful to the series, which also did not credit Markowitz for the theme. Additional parts of the score were composed by Bernstein's son
Peter, while his daughter Emilie served as one of the orchestrators and producers. Like most of his films during this period, Will Smith recorded a
hip hop song based on the film's plot, also titled "
Wild Wild West". "Wild Wild West" was a number-one hit on the U.S. pop charts, though it also won a
Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song. It was produced by
Rob Fusari, who lifted a
sample from
Stevie Wonder's 1976 hit "
I Wish". The song also features guest vocals from
R&B group
Dru Hill, and was a star-making vehicle for Dru Hill lead singer
Sisqó.
Old-school rapper Kool Moe Dee had previously recorded a
"Wild Wild West" single of his own in 1987, and he reperformed the chorus from his "Wild Wild West" as the chorus of Smith's "Wild Wild West". A performance of the song by Smith, Dee, Dru Hill and Sisqo at the 1999
MTV Movie Awards also included Wonder performing a reprise of the chorus on
piano.
Score Score Deluxe Edition ==Release==